Partners

The Philippine Livelihood Marketing Corporation (PHILMACO)

Background / Rationale

The Filipino-Chinese Federation of Business and Professional Women of the Philippines (Fil-Chi ) is an organization of women executives in business and different professions. As their members prosper in their respective businesses and professions, they share their experience and expertise so that others may benefit from them. They embark on economic empowerment projects particularly for women in the lower income groups , so that they may improve their living conditions thus contributing to improving the quality of life of the Filipinos.

It is the objective of the Fil-Chi to develop and empower community-based livelihood activities to grow into micro, small and medium enterprises thru a partnership strategy with government and private sector.

As TESDA geared away from its direct training function and while adapting the directions of rural development and social integration, one of its strategies is to pursue entrepreneurship and enterprise development through active partnering with various stakeholders in support of the current government thrust of building a strong republic towards employment generation for poverty alleviation. Through the various economic empowerment programs and projects of the TESDA Women’s Center TWC) and the community-based training and enterprise development (CBTED) projects, TESDA provided assistance to LGUs , cooperatives, federations, associations, POS and NGOs engaged in employment generation thru technical and social / empowerment skills training as an entry point.

Access to the market had been proven to be difficult particularly for the livelihood, micro, cottage and small enterprises after providing them assistance to improve productivity. So far, TESDA’s interventions are limited to providing assistance to conduct technical and social skills and entrepreneurship development training programs. Questions are always being asked of TESDA, “after training what?”. A market for the products produced after various forms of assistance provided by TESDA became an urgent concern.

Within this context, TESDA thru the TESDA-Fil-Chi / Philmaco partnership project “Marketing Opportunities with Capabilities / Capacities Development Progrsm”. To immediately opertionalize the partnerships project, Fil-Chi established The Philippine Livelihood Marketing Corporation (Philmaco) as its major counterpart. Pilmaco, a corporation duly registered under the /securities in Exchange Commission is the marketing arm of the TWC- assisted producers and CBTED-assisted producers. One of the major counterparts of TESDA is the provision of office and warehouse facilities for Philmaco at the TESDA Women’s Center.

Objectives:

The TESDA-Fil-Chi / Philmaco partnership project aims to:

A. Operationalize Philmaco as :
- a truly customer-oriented intermediary marketing organization for TWC and CBTED- assisted producers and;
- a profitable social enterprise.

B. Assist the TWC and CBTED-assisted producers in product development and
improving quality of their products as defined by customers.

C. Build the capacities and capabilities of the TWC and CBTED-asssited producers
thru other interventions in areas of

• production – including technology, product design, research and development;
• financing-including access to credit and information; and
• human resource development- including training and institutional development.

D. Develop more social entrepreneurs.